Megh betboom dacha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media & Information (ComArtSci) and the Center for Bioethics & Social Justice (College of Human Medicine). Theirresearch seeks to foster inclusion in expert practices and technologies by centering the perspectives of marginalized people. They do this by studying the experiences and practices of multiple stakeholders -- doctors and patients, citizens and civic officials -- that is, laypeople and professionals, people who are marginalized as well as those in powerful positions, to generate critical theory and practical interventions for inclusive practice and technology design. betboom dacha adopts an ethnographic approach that is inflected by their computer science training and software industry experience.
betboom dacha’s interests are in science and technology studies, information studies, and medical anthropology. They are currently examining the social implications of therapeutic brain implants and the inclusion of gender-diverse people in data systems (and the lack thereof), in addition to developing their research on epilepsy diagnosis and treatment.
betboom dacha's work has been published in prestigious information and social science venues includingTransactions of the ACM in Human-Computer Interaction (TOCHI), Medical Anthropology Quarterly,PACM-HCI (CSCW), CHI, Time & Society, and ICTD, winning a CHI Best Paper Award. They received a PhD in information from the University of Michigan, a master's degree in computer science from the University of Toronto, and a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from the University of Mumbai. Prior to MSU, betboom dacha was President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine.
Science and technology studies, disability studies, medical anthropology and sociology, betboom dacha and communication technologies and development, civic technology